Friday, August 5, 2016
Trump Towers as the Berlin Bunker of 2016
Earlier today, I posted on the theme of “President-Elect Hillary Clinton,” in part because I believe that it’s important to speak out loud the reality that we must bring to pass, if this planet is to have even the slightest chance of playing host to human civilization for another century. While it is true that my personal political inclination is the left of Bernie Sanders, I intend to vote for Hillary Clinton in November, and I hope that anyone who wavers on making a similar commitment takes serious note of what is happening in her opponent’s campaign.
New Jersey governor Chris Christie, for instance, recently rebuked his party’s nominee for his disgraceful attacks on a Gold Star family. Now mind you: Chris Christie is the politician Trump appointed to be the head of the official Presidential Transition Team, which each candidate has in place to help accelerate the process of establishing a new administration. It’s hard to top something like Trump’s own hand-picked, most trusted assistant publicly telling him off, but there are still 100 odd days to go til Election Day, and I do mean “odd days.” My rule of thumb for judging anyone who runs for public office has always been very simple: If you can’t run a campaign, you won’t be able to run the office you’re on the ballot for.
I predict that Trump’s campaign will go down as the most ignominiously managed one in the entire history of the United States. I doubt it will be any consolation to his supporters that someone has to finish last in any ranking, whether it be in an athletic competition or in the political arena; and I would rush to remind them that their support of Trump does not mean they are equivalent losers. On the other hand, I ask them to reconsider their vote before they cast it in November, and thereby spare themselves the shame of having to lie twenty years from now about supporting him on Election Day, 2016.
In particular, Trump’s advocates should take a long, hard look at how he has bragged that he received over 14,000,000 votes in the primaries, “more than Dwight D. Eisenhower received, and he won World War II.”
How can any person in the electorate not tremble and quail at the unfathomable ego of Donald Trump? Let’s rephrase it slightly so that its full import is heard: “Eisenhower won World War II,” he says,” and I got more votes in the primaries than he did.” The implication is easy to detect, and if it’s not, go get a huge cup of very strong coffee.
Do those of you who support Trump not understand his megalomania? Donald Trump is not worthy of driving Eisenhower’s jeep! Is there anyone who believes that we would have won World War II with Trump in charge of the Normandy Invasion? Pleeeaazzzzzeee…. there is no laugh track that matches this preposterous absurdity.
As a final side-note, Trump’s ignorance of basic mathematical ratios is rather disturbing. There are many more people in the United States now than in 1952. Of course you might well get more total votes, but did you get more votes in proportion to the number of eligible voters, Mr. Trump. His boast is like a movie company saying that “our new film had a bigger box office than The Sound of Music.” The obvious problem is that not only are there more people in the United States available to attend a movie theater in 2016, but they also pay more for a ticket. Of course the ticket gross will be larger for your movie, one would say to a contemporary movie producer. It doesn’t mean your movie is better than one that premiered 50 years ago. Such basic use of information seems to be beyond Trump’s ability to make relevant comparisons.
I am, of course, not the only one to point this discrepancy out, but in the flurry of daily sound-bites, we must not let the most provocative comments lose their importance in the defamiliarization sweepstakes. Trump’s grandiosity needs continual puncturing, given that he has proven capable of an insidious degree of instantaneous political triage.
For additional information on Donald Trump’s comparison of himself with General and President Dwight D. Eisenhower, see:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/trump-most-votes-reagan-eisenhower_us_577d5f52e4b01edea78c4336
In the end, anyone so deluded as to rank himself above Dwight D. Eisenhower is in such serious psychological trouble that it can only be categorized as a death spiral of psychotic fantasy. When — not if, but when — Trump loses, he should be immediately put under a suicide watch. One must have compassion even for those who exploit the prejudice of others to whip up fear and loathing. Let us hope that he seeks professional psychological help in 2017, instead of turning Trump Towers into a parody of Hitler in his Berlin bunker.
About Bill Mohr